ignite again
by theseerasures
Summary: "Hey, Disney—wholesome goodness. We'll watch, we'll get our hearts warmed, we'll get our kumbayas out at the end. No one gets mad and no one gets sad." Or: the Avengers watch Frozen. It...doesn't go quite as planned.


For professorspork's 24th. Happy Birthday, Leah!

Not mine, and a glaring reference to Firefly.

* * *

"No, Stark," Natasha says as soon as she opens the front door to her apartment.

Tony pouts a response, blowing lightly on his knuckles. "I haven't even said anything yet!"

"Doesn't matter." She makes her way back into the kitchen to pour them both a drink; Tony's always been more pliable with alcohol. It'll be easier to talk him out of whatever harebrained team bonding eureka moment he just had.

(She wants to feel a little bad for it, but old habits die hard.)

He gulps down the vodka without hesitation. "Disgusting," he says as he holds out the glass for a refill, "And come _on_. The laser tag—"

"Was a catastrophe," Steve says as he walks in from the guest room. "Clint nearly killed the supervisor."

"That's—" Tony stops, stares. "What are you doing here?"

Steve opens his mouth, probably to give a polite and roundabout answer, but Natasha beats him to it. "He lives here."

"What," Tony says. For a minute it seems as if he's shocked into silence (physically impossible, but Natasha has hope), then:

"I offered you a room! I offered you a _floor_ of rooms. You said—"

"I don't want to impose," Steve says, blushing scarlet.

Tony jabs a finger at him. "That! You said that. You're imposing here? You," a sharp gesture at the kitchen, "_Imposing_. And. She's a lady! That doesn't upset your Greatest Generation sensibilities at all?"

Steve's face goes from red to maroon. "I—"

Tony whirls around to face Natasha. "Does the bird know about this?"

She raises an eyebrow—slowly, to freak him out more. "What does Barton have to do with anything?"

"Well, you—" He looks at her, changes his mind. "Cap! My…captain. Team bonding the old fashioned way, back me up. Movie night! Bruce said yes already—"

"Didn't," Natasha interjects, and Tony scowls.

"Fine, Bruce said _maybe_ already, but, here—"

He tosses a thin case, and Steve lifts it out of the air, frowns. "_Frozen?_"

Tony winces. "Yeah, bad taste probably—but it's a fairy tale! And hey, Disney—wholesome goodness. We'll watch, we'll get our hearts warmed, we'll get our kumbayas out at the end. No one gets mad and no one gets sad."

Steve traces the outline of the lettering of the case, summoning up old ghosts. New ghosts. "I don't think so, Tony."

Natasha forces herself to relax, pours herself another glass, and hums.

"Hey, stop that," Tony says, "Coldplay is awful, you're not allowed to sing. Steve…" he hesitates, sighs. "What happened with Barnes—"

"Don't," Steve says, quietly, and Tony raises his hands, relenting.

"Not," he replies, "Not. I'm just—we've all had a not-fun year, you—you most of all, probably. And I. We don't have to talk about it, I don't _want_ to talk about it. Let's just watch a movie, yeah? There's a snowman, there's a reindeer. There are princesses. It might be fun."

Natasha watches Steve, and watches Tony watch Steve. Tony Stark is almost predictable in how he manages to surprise her, every once in a while; it's strange, but nice all the same.

"8K resolution," Tony adds, but it's an afterthought.

"I—" Steve swallows hard, and exhales, forcefully. "Sure. Why not."

Tony actually pumps his fist in the air. "Friday!" he sings out, and grins triumphantly at Natasha before heading out the door.

She rolls her eyes.

* * *

Clint is the last to show up; no one is surprised.

"Got lost," he says breezily.

"This is _Stark Tower_," Tony says, flapping his hands like a disapproving mother. (It's not his best look.)

Clint just stares flatly back at him, and after a couple of seconds Tony gives up. "Oh come on, then. The magic's starting."

From the couch that he's taken for himself, Thor perks up. "Magic?"

* * *

"This is truly magic!" he exclaims, three minutes later.

"Yes, Thor," Tony drawls. On the screen, the younger princess—Hannah? Anna?—laughs and hugs a snowman. "Actual magic, not the weird stuff you Asgardians won't share."

It's a stupid thing to say, he knows it as soon it comes out of his mouth. "Shit," he says as Thor's shoulders slump a little, "Thor, I didn't mean—"

"_Slow down!_" the older kid cries out, and—

The room falls abruptly silent.

* * *

Steve looks blankly at Tony's obnoxiously large television. Something must be happening. They're only six minutes in, the world can't have ended yet.

In his mind, the little girl falls, and falls, and falls.

Tremors, running up and down the veins of his arm. Fault lines.

"Here," a voice says, from far away.

A glass is put into his hands. He stares down at it. "Alcohol doesn't affect the serum."

_The serum_, he thinks. Clinical, like it's not part of him. Like they hadn't given a version of it to Bucky, like—

Natasha punches him sharply in the arm, brings him back. "Drink it anyway," she says.

Steve nods, shakily, and obeys.

* * *

"Wow, this is—" Tony says as they watch Elsa close her door, "Sad. Like, not for Disney sad. Anyone else get that feeling?"

"Why does she not open her door?" Thor demands, ignoring him.

There's a slightly awkward silence, and then Tony clears his throat. "Thor, buddy—did you miss the whole spiel that troll gave? He said—"

"I was listening," Thor replies. "The All—the grandfather troll told her that her power would only grow, that there was danger, but would it not be better to tell the truth? She cannot hide forever, and—her sister needs her. I would never—"

He stops. "Thor," Bruce says, after another pause.

There is a strange kind of understanding in his eyes—in everyone's eyes—that makes Thor's jaw clench. It is not the same—Loki is not—

Loki is not.

He turns away from them and fixes his eyes back onto the screen. _Open_, he thinks. Pleads.

_Open_.

* * *

Clint watches; it's his job, even though he's not being paid for it right now.

Thor usually looms over everyone, even when he's sitting, but right now he's hunched over, and…

It's weird. Clint _remembers_ human Thor, in vivid detail, but he's never seen the god of thunder quite like this, either.

_Move on_, his mind prods, so he does—widen the scope, he can leave the close-up psychoanalytic shit to Nat.

"_Don't touch me! I don't want to hurt you," _the older princess says to her parents. Clint absently notes the sudden stiffening of Bruce's spine, and disregards it. If it turns out to be important later, then they can handle it later.

Steve looks better after tossing down that shot of whiskey, but there's still an unfocused look to his eyes that Clint doesn't like. Tony's…being Tony, which tonight seems to involve a lot of manic glances the rest of them, and Nat—

Is looking right back at him, as usual.

Clint gives her a lazy wave, and she smirks a response before shifting her attention back to the move. He follows her lead, and watches as a storm brings down the ship carrying the king and queen.

He watches as Anna knocks on Elsa's door after the funeral, and very carefully does not think about Barney.

* * *

"_Conceal,_" Elsa sings, "_Don't feel. Put on a show…_"

Natasha sits perfectly still, ignoring the sudden pain beneath her left eye.

* * *

"I do not like this Hans," Thor announces to the room in general.

Tony jumps; he can't help it, okay, everyone's been quiet for a while, and _he _isn't a scary super something.

(Also, Bruce: he's not a Bruce either.)

"Why not?"

Thor frowns at the television, obviously trying to find the right words. "He is far too…"

He trails off, and then finishes, lamely, "He would ask questions."

"What, like Jane did after she ran you over?" Even in the darkness, Tony can tell that Thor is blushing; he grins. "Yeah, in real life maybe, but this is Disney."

Apparently the little sweeping thing he does with his hands to show what he means isn't all that helpful, because Thor just squints at him. He tries again. "You know? _Disney_."

"Helpful," Natasha says; Tony ignores her.

"Look, Anna's not a Norse god with washboard abs, okay, and Disney—this kind of cartoon movie? With the Princesses? Not really known for being subtle, especially in the guy department. This kind of guy, the kind that looks and feels like mashed potatoes, a little? He's fine. _Boring_ maybe, but—true love, you heard them. You're going to have to roll with it."

As far as his speeches go, it's a pretty nice one—acclimating aliens to Earth culture, all that—but Thor just keeps giving him that Neanderthal grimace. "I do not like him," he repeats.

Tony sighs, and pours himself more Scotch.

* * *

"She can make _dresses _out of ice?"

There's a clattering sound from behind her, and then the screen freezes.

"Weren't you the one going on about rolling with it earlier?" Natasha hears Clint ask.

"But—" Tony's gesticulating, she doesn't even need to look to know, "A dress! Fabric! Can Iceman do that? JARVIS, call—"

"Don't, JARVIS," Steve interrupts.

"Oh, _come on_," Tony says as JARVIS stays conspicuously silent, "Metamaterials out of _ice_. Do you have any idea—"

"Maybe it's not?" Bruce suggests. Natasha allows a corner of her mouth to flick up for a second; he'd gone stiff again after the scene in the palace courtyard, but this seems to relax him. "She was wearing a dress already—maybe the ice…bonded with the existing material?"

"And made a brand new cloak thing?" Tony demands, "No, the wavelength—hey!"

Another clatter. "Roll with it," Clint says, over Tony's yelp of high-pitched indignation.

The movie plays on; Natasha watches as Elsa completes her transformation and slams the doors from the world.

Fine. She's fine.

* * *

"_Reindeers are better than people. Sven, don't you think that's true?_"

Someone nudges Bruce in his side. "Remind you of someone?" Natasha whispers to him as he turns to face her.

He smiles, remembering how she'd first looked at him in Kolkata. Calculation mingled with fear, like he was a precious commodity that needed to be caged. That she'd choose to remember what he'd tried to do-to heal and make amends in whatever ways he can-instead of what he'd _been_…

It's warm.

"_I don't take people places,_" Kristoff mumbles onscreen.

"It never sticks," he murmurs to Natasha.

As they watch Kristoff reluctantly agree to help Anna, he hears her hum an agreement.

* * *

"This man is worthy," Thor proclaims as wolves show up out of nowhere and the night ride crashes and burns. His smile is large and sure.

Tony scoffs. "You just like him because he's _blonde_."

* * *

"Oh look," Bruce says, as a bizarre sentient snowman waddles into view, "It's Tony."

Tony sputters outs something furiously incoherent—something about traitors and how if he was a snowman he'd have _weapons and spikes_.

Steve laughs in spite of himself.

* * *

Clint watches the storm form around the sisters.

There's a weird prickling feeling in his" fingertips; something must be happening, the last time he'd felt like this had been—

He shakes his head, forcefully; it's a movie. It's a _kid's_ movie. Nothing's going to happen, not if he watches closely enough.

(_Blue. The whole place is blue_.)

The storm increases; when did this happen? Things had been okay until the snowman showed up—no, until Anna'd said something about everything being frozen—no, until—

He can't _see_-

"_I CAN'T!"_

The magic hits Anna's chest and Clint's vision ices over; frozen hearts, frozen _hearts_ he should have known, he should have fucking _seen,_ he sees better from a distance why does he always think he can get close without drowning?

He needs to be _away _but he can't move. Cold, and _blue eyes_—

The shadows smile, viciously.

* * *

Tony stares at the huge snow monster that Elsa constructed out of nothing but fear.

Power and weapons and spikes.

* * *

"_Don't feel,_" Elsa tells herself. No more songs. "_Don't feel. Don't feel. Don't feel—_"

Natasha closes her eyes for an instant; then she opens them again, makes herself a witness.

* * *

Bruce watches as Elsa blurs and contorts into in something inhuman—shame and rage and _fearfearfear_—watches as she nearly pushes a man over the precipice.

Watches as she nearly pushes herself over.

"_Don't be the monster they fear you are!_"

_Monster _bleeds his world green; Bruce breathes in slowly, clenching and unclenching his fists, and then breathes out.

He's going to—why is no one—

* * *

"He cannot leave her!" Thor shouts. "Not now, he must—"

"True love," Tony says, dully.

* * *

"_Oh, Anna…if only there was someone out there who loved you._"

Everyone is gone—he is alone and puffing out cold in the freezing air _Bucky no it can't be Bucky please no_

Ice is spreading all over his chest_._ A cold smile: you are no match for this winter, what power do you have? The heart is not so easy.

The world whites away.

* * *

The door closes with a small snap and _something_ flies out of Thor's hand; Tony watches numbly as his new Smart Screen shatters in a shower of sparks.

Love, he'd told Thor. Insisted when he should have known, he should have _known_—

_Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?_

He can't get enough air—the surgery took out all the shards, but what if it missed one? He needs to check. He needs to fix it—dig his fingers into his old heart. Build another one. Build a stronger one.

Someone's shouting. He blinks the world into focus and catches a flash of red as Natasha leaves the room; Steve and Bruce are already gone. Thor looks at him and opens his mouth—whether to apologize or to yell some more, Tony doesn't know, but he can't, he _can't_.

_What kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?_

His Scotch glass drops soundlessly onto carpet, and then he's gone, too.

* * *

"Isn't this fucking fun?" Clint asks the almost empty room. Thor's probably wondering if he's lost his marbles, but he doesn't care.

Everyone else has left—even fucking _Tony_—but he's still stuck. He can't move.

Instead, he sits in his chair, and watches. And laughs, bitterly. "Look at all the _fun_ we're having."

* * *

Natasha sits on the bathroom floor, shivering. The drop in temperature is no more real than the moving walls, she's just—

She needs a minute.

Enclosed spaces have never bothered her; she's not Clint. And the cold—she's been through worse. New York winters, Moscow winters. Winters in the Red Room, screams and prayers bleeding into one: _please God make me a stone_

_Don't feel. DON'T feel._

Footsteps drum against her closed eyelids. Steve, who's shaking from head to foot; she doesn't react, knowing that he'll take it rightly as an invitation, and sure enough he slumps down next to her seconds later.

"Are you—" he breaks, and she hears James in the catch of his voice. "Are you okay?"

Natasha feels her mouth contort into something resembling a smile, and it might be the most honest thing she's given in a long time. "If you are."

He makes a slow, gasping sound; a drowned man. "I don't—"

And stops, again. "I always thought—"

"James Buchanan Barnes was never a hero," she says, interrupting him. Cut through the heart, cold and clear. "Even when he worked for the Americans, they'd send him out to do covert operations, things that Captain America could never be seen doing."

"Don't—"

"You always knew," Natasha continues. In her mind, she traces the contours of his stricken face. She keeps her eyes closed. "For every paragon…"

There's no need to finish that sentence; he knows how it ends. _Who's like us?_

_Damn few._

Steve is silent for a very long time. "But he was _mine_," he says, finally, like the words are being torn out of his mouth, "Bucky was _my_—."

Natasha sighs. "I know," she replies, "Me, too."

Call him James and take away his mind, but the Winter Soldier had taught her how to brave the cold. Saved her, loved her.

Silence again, but the room seems to warm, if only a little. "Does it ever get better?" Steve asks, after a while.

Natasha opens her eyes, looks him in the eye. "No," she says, "That's you. _You _get better."

He smiles, an uncertain and fragile thing. Not a lie, but not a truth either. Not yet. Black balancing red. "We should go back."

"We should," she agrees, but closes her eyes again rests her head on his shoulder, "But not yet."

* * *

"Tony?"

It's Pepper. He drops the wrench in his hand, glares up at the ceiling. "JARVIS, I never told you to—"

"Tony, are you okay?"

She sounds tired, and anxious, like she'd been asleep—what time is it in Norway right now? Like home. "Yeah," he calls out, "Yeah, just uh—something broke, I'm trying to be handy."

_Handy_, like he's not trying to cobble together another suit; _handy_, like he's not fixing things to fix himself; _handy_, like he's not lying and boy this is sounding really familiar right about now—

"Well…no," he admits, sagging down onto the nearest chair, "Maybe somewhere in the general vicinity of…not."

There's a quiet crackling sound as Pepper sighs. "Tell me?"

He pictures her sitting up from bed, brushing hair out of her eyes, and…"I miss you," he says. Then, "Have you seen _Frozen_?"

"The new Disney movie? Yeah, the company sent me an advance copy to curry favor months ago and I—" she pauses, and then lets out a long, slow breath, "Oh."

"Yeah, oh. We didn't even make to the end, Thor smashed the new screen at the part with Hans being—" _Obie_—"an abusive _fuck_."

"Are you…what happened?"

"I just—it's been a rough year, you know, I thought it'd give everyone a chance to wind down…"

He looks around at his workshop; _adamantium armor for underground work_, his mind whispers, but he pushes it away. "Maybe I should have looked it up on Wikipedia first—or asked you, probably. You usually do better with this kind of stuff."

"You couldn't have known."

"Could so," he argues, but it's not the point. "I—I try, you know, but this is the most screwed up boy band outside of South Korea, and I…"

_What kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?_

"I'm a disaster, really," he says, "I keep doing and saying the wrong things, and sometimes I wonder—what if I'm doing it on purpose, somehow? What if I make things worse? If—if _I'm_ so fucked up, should I even…?"

The idea expands, threatens to eat him whole; he leans back against the chair, and just listens to Pepper breathe. A lifeline.

"Yes."

"Hmm?"

"You should keep trying, I—remember right after you—got back, from Afghanistan? What I gave you? _Proof that Tony Stark has a heart_."

He frowns. "Yeah, but—"

"That's still true," Pepper interrupts, "That's always been true, no matter what you—shoved into your chest cavity, no matter what you took out. You do _good_, Tony, even when you're trying not to do anything at all, and if you give up—well. I'm not going to let you, and neither will Rhodey, or Steve, or Bruce, or anyone."

Tony exhales, shakily. "Oh, look. I've been impaled."

"I do better with this stuff, remember?" she says, and he smiles. "You should finish the movie."

There's a strange, comforting tightness to his chest. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, it's—you'll cry your eyes out. Everyone will, and…it'll be good. Okay?"

He swallows, hard. "Okay."

* * *

Bruce paces on the balcony, gritting his teeth. The Other Guy rages against his ribcage, roaring to be let out. One jump and he's free, straight drop into the Hudson—no one would even get hurt.

Just Bruce Banner, making a monster out of a man. Business as usual.

He can, but he doesn't; just pushes the Other Guy back and back, makes himself hurt, because he _deserves to_—

_Don't be the monster they fear you are!_

The door slides open. "Hey," Tony says, "Hey, Bruce, I—hey."

"Stay away," Bruce snarls, hears the warp in his voice.

Tony grins. "Oh, you know me," he says, stepping closer, "Not afraid of the big guy, see? We get along fine."

"I could _kill _you."

"Well, fine. But you won't."

Pain, at the base of his neck, he can only hold this off for so long. "How do you—"

"You're not a monster," Tony says, like it's the easier thing in the world. "Trust me, you're the cuddliest out of all of us. Just, uh—come back inside, okay? It's cold out."

And then he is gone. Bruce stares after him, feeling his breathing hitch and hitch again. _You're not a monster_.

He closes his eyes, and lets his anger in, lets it wash over. _I am Bruce Banner. I help people when I can. I have people who do the same for me._

Slowly, the storm dies down.

* * *

Clint sighs as Thor looks at him hesitantly. "I don't want to talk."

Apparently whatever language they speak in Asgard counts that as an invitation, because the big guy immediately opens his mouth. "It occurs to me that I have never truly apologized to you for what happened with—"

"I _said_ I don't want to talk," Clint snaps.

This time it seems to work. "I am sorry," Thor says quietly, and turns away.

Well, _now_ it's not awkward. "You don't need to," Clint says, cursing himself inwardly, "Apologize, I mean. It wasn't your fault any more than it was mine."

"But it was," Thor says insistently, "When Loki and I were young, I—I was not kind enough. I could have turned him away from the path he chose, but I did not notice. Even after he—sometimes I looked at him, and he was alright. And he was my brother, still."

"You don't need to tell me," Clint says. He remembers the glow of Barney's smile, the roughness of his hands. "I know brothers."

Thor looks at him, impossibly small. "I was not _enough_," he finally says, desperately.

Clint stares down at his bourbon. "You can't be. Not for—Loki, for anyone. All you can do is…"

_Love them,_ he thinks, _hope._

"Everyone's a fixer upper," he says instead, "But it's not our job to fix them, all right?"

"That is very wise," Thor tells him, smiling hesitantly.

Clint barks out a laugh. "I know, right? Fucking _trolls_."

* * *

"Oh, this is—" Tony stares down at the remains of his screen-thing, and rattles off a string of curses. "Thor, what did you even _throw_."

The god in question shrugs, uncomfortably. "What was in my hand at the time, I believe."

"Let it go, Stark," Natasha says, mouth twitching.

Tony's head whips around. "Did you just—_8K_ resolution, okay. We're going to have to watch the rest of it on the plasma screen."

A sudden silence falls, and he looks around nervously. "That is, uh—"

No one speaks, and he deflates visibly. "We don't have to finish the movie."

Steve spots the DVD case among the wreckage, and picks it up. Two princesses, a snowman, and a reindeer: all of them smiling. Frozen in time.

_Get better_.

He smiles, and waits for the pain to become bearable again. "I'd like to keep watching."

* * *

"_Let it go, let it go_…"

The same song, a different singer. Tony swipes his eyes quickly, and glances around at the room.

Thor's making a weird trumpet sound into a-_is that a tablecloth, where did he_-something, accompanied by hiccuping noises. Steve's eyes are over-bright as he reaches over a slightly sniffling Bruce for a tissue; even Clint looks less tightly coiled as he leans against Natasha's leg, and Natasha is…

Blinking. Rapidly.

Tony smiles. "JARVIS? Call Pepper for me."

"Of course, sir."

"Tony? Did something else—"

He grimaces. "No, nothing—I just wanted to—hey."

"Hey," Pepper says back, and he can tell she's smiling.

"We've finished the movie," he tells her, "that last part—the twist? Worth all the drama."

She makes a quiet noise of agreement. "Are you crying your eyes out?"

"Oh, yeah. Everyone is—Romanov's sobbing into a hanky right now."

Natasha flips him the bird without even turning around, and he grins. "Not a dry eye in the house," he tells Pepper.

Everything's okay, or, or—getting there, at least.


End file.
